17 Packing Struggles Every Girl Understands

Packing sounds like a pretty simple, practical task: Put the things you'll need for a certain amount of time into a suitcase. But it's NOT. Packing is majorly tricky. For some reason, you live in fear of overpacking, but there's really nothing worse than forgetting an essential like toothpaste, or realizing you don't have shoes to go with the cute dress you packed. Then there's having to stuff it all in a single tiny suitcase or overnight bag. Seriously, when it comes to packing, the struggles are endless...

1. Getting started is the hardest part. No matter what, you always leave packing until the last possible minute, because you keep telling yourself 'I have plenty of time!' until there's an hour before you have to be in the car, packed and ready to go.

2. You can't decide what's worse: Under-packing or overpacking. You could travel light, but then you risk not being prepared. Then again, you'd rather not lug around your whole closet.

3. You pack way too much at first. This is called the I'm-taking-everything stage where you throw everything you could possibly want or need in your suitcase. Do I really need six pairs of shorts for a weekend in Florida? you ask yourself. The answer is YES.

4. Then, when your suitcase won't close no matter how long you sit on it, you go into the elimination stage. You get rid of some of the items you probably won't need. Like maybe you can live without SIX pairs of shorts. Two or three will probably do.

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5. And when you still can't close your bag... You go into the second stage of elimination, where you seriously feel like you need everything left in there, but something's got to go.

6. You play Packing Tetris in an attempt to fit everything into your suitcase. Maybe if you fold your clothes before you pack them, you'll have more space. But it ends up taking you twice as long to pack, time you definitely don't have since you waited until the last minute to pack. So you end up giving up halfway through and go back to alternating between shoving the rest in and sitting on your suitcase.

7. You begin to think that packing everything into one bag just isn't realistic. You really need a bag for your clothes, one for your shoes, one for your cosmetics, one for your sweaters... Is six bags a lot to bring for four days?

8. You wonder what makeup is essential and what you'll have to leave behind.Wait, maybe I can fit it all, you think to yourself. Nope. Not gonna happen.

9. Your brain is constantly battling with itself. Even though the more reasonable part of your brain is telling you there's NO WAY you need seven pairs of shoes for a four day vacation and they'll take up too much space, you still find yourself trying to cram seven pairs of shoes into your suitcase. Same with those two shirts that look really similar, but each feel special and indispensable in their own way.

10. It's times like these that you wish bottomless bags were actually a thing that existed. Where's Mary Poppins bottomless purse when you need it? Or Hermione's handbag with the undetectable extension charm placed on it?

11. You always, always, always forget at least one essential hygienic product. If you remembered your toothbrush and toothpaste, you forgot your deodorant. Or vise versa.

12. Which means you almost always have to beg to stop at a drugstore to buy the essential hygienic product you forgot. Or go a week without deodorant.

13. When you're going away for an extended period of time and literally everything seems essential to bring. A month home for winter break seems like forever, and even though you have tons of stuff that you left at home, you don't know what you'll need.

14. Somehow, on the way back you always have twice as much stuff as you came with. Where are you supposed to put all this additional stuff? Time to pull out the trash bags.

15. When you stuff all the extra stuff you're bringing back in plastic bags and they rip. All your clean clothes spill out all over the ground and you feel like crying.

16. After you finish packing, you always have a moment of self doubt. You must have forgotten something. And it feels like whatever it is, must be important. So you end up double checking that you packed everything over and over again.

17. But you can never figure out what you forgot until it's too late. It was your fuzzy socks that you wear to keep your toes warm when you're reading or watching Netflix in bed. Guess you'll have to do without them. *tear*

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